Film Reflection: My Louisiana Love
Climate Justice, Digital Activism, and Gender, Prof. Frances Roberts-Gregory
By Cormac Madden, 4/29/2019
Monique Verdin's My Louisiana Love in fact deals with many different loves, perhaps with everything and everyone that she has ever loved in the world. Regardless of which "love" one wishes it refers to, however, the romance of the documentary is undoubtedly a tragedy, whether it be the love between Verdin and Mark Krasnoff (her late husband, referred to affectionately as "Kraz"), Verdin and her family, or Verdin (and the greater Houma community) and the state's land itself. The film is a tale of loss, above all else, with the land loss in Louisiana paralleling Verdin's loss of Krasnoff and her father, along with her grandmother's home.
My Louisiana Love is intimately filmed, often by the film's main characters (Verdin and Krasnoff) themselves. Throughout the film, we watch them suffer tremendous traumas and distresses, including living through Hurricane Katrina and the post-Katrina search for lost loved ones. Verdin's grandmother, a French Indian woman named Matine who features prominently throughout the film as Verdin's closest emotional connection to her Houma heritage, was missing for almost a week before being as identified as a refugee in the Superdome. We watch these traumas play out inside the home, such as when we see Verdin's grandmother cutting her hair after the death of Krasnoff or when we watch the family return to their devastated home after Katrina. The effect is incredibly touching, as the emotion of the Verdins' losses can be read plainly on their faces, the camera a familiar and only occasionally perturbing intruder.
In "Monique Verdin's Louisiana Love: An Interview," Kristin Squint contextualizes the film within Verdin's larger career of activism. The struggle of the Houma nation against the devastation of their land and culture figures prominently in both the film and Verdin's larger body of work. In her interview with Squint, Verdin speaks about her documentary, two photography exhibits depicting the destruction of Houma communities in Louisiana (one of which is shown in the film), her land memory bank— which houses both indigenous seeds as well as community artwork, sculptures and stories in an effort to preserve physical history— and her activism work, which has taken her to Washington, D.C. and the COP in Paris as an activist for the Indigenous Environmental Network. The heart of this activism —as well as the film—is clearly Verdin's Louisiana love, whether it be for her family, her nation, or her homeland. Her strength in the face of its loss, whether actualized or potential, is what makes her film so empowering.
By Cormac Madden, 4/29/2019
Monique Verdin's My Louisiana Love in fact deals with many different loves, perhaps with everything and everyone that she has ever loved in the world. Regardless of which "love" one wishes it refers to, however, the romance of the documentary is undoubtedly a tragedy, whether it be the love between Verdin and Mark Krasnoff (her late husband, referred to affectionately as "Kraz"), Verdin and her family, or Verdin (and the greater Houma community) and the state's land itself. The film is a tale of loss, above all else, with the land loss in Louisiana paralleling Verdin's loss of Krasnoff and her father, along with her grandmother's home.
My Louisiana Love is intimately filmed, often by the film's main characters (Verdin and Krasnoff) themselves. Throughout the film, we watch them suffer tremendous traumas and distresses, including living through Hurricane Katrina and the post-Katrina search for lost loved ones. Verdin's grandmother, a French Indian woman named Matine who features prominently throughout the film as Verdin's closest emotional connection to her Houma heritage, was missing for almost a week before being as identified as a refugee in the Superdome. We watch these traumas play out inside the home, such as when we see Verdin's grandmother cutting her hair after the death of Krasnoff or when we watch the family return to their devastated home after Katrina. The effect is incredibly touching, as the emotion of the Verdins' losses can be read plainly on their faces, the camera a familiar and only occasionally perturbing intruder.
In "Monique Verdin's Louisiana Love: An Interview," Kristin Squint contextualizes the film within Verdin's larger career of activism. The struggle of the Houma nation against the devastation of their land and culture figures prominently in both the film and Verdin's larger body of work. In her interview with Squint, Verdin speaks about her documentary, two photography exhibits depicting the destruction of Houma communities in Louisiana (one of which is shown in the film), her land memory bank— which houses both indigenous seeds as well as community artwork, sculptures and stories in an effort to preserve physical history— and her activism work, which has taken her to Washington, D.C. and the COP in Paris as an activist for the Indigenous Environmental Network. The heart of this activism —as well as the film—is clearly Verdin's Louisiana love, whether it be for her family, her nation, or her homeland. Her strength in the face of its loss, whether actualized or potential, is what makes her film so empowering.
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